Linguistic behavior often reveals cultural practices. In fact, sociolinguistics is dedicated to researching how language use intersects with cultural and social identity (e.g., Coupland. and Jaworski, 2009). One aspect of language use that sociolinguistics focuses on is naming practices. The study of such practices is called onomastics. While sociolinguistics and onomastics sound like esoteric electives one might only find at the graduate level, the principles can be applied to the developmental English classroom to facilitate students' understanding of themselves both as readers and writers. In this article, the author will focus on a sociolinguistic approach that helps developmental students uncover character identity in contemporary fiction.